Country Roads
by The-other-8th-wonder
Summary: The Jones Family left Tenessee for the Big Apple when Mercedes was 8. Their departure, and last visit, erased every good feeling she ever had about the place. Nine years later, Mercedes gets in trouble with the law and finds herself being forced back to the one place she never wanted to see again. Will she find what she lost?


Mercedes sat in the police station with her hands in her lap twiddling anxious thumbs. Shit. Her parents were going to kill her. Looking over at the 'reassuring' smirk on her boyfriend, she was sure she was going to die.

"Don't worry about it babe." Jessie's words did nothing to slow her quickening heartrate. He didn't know Calvin Jones. He didn't know that according to her father the biggest infractions you could make were: 1. Showing your ass, and 2. embarrassing him. In one unassuming move she did both, and knew there would be hell to pay.

"You don't know my dad." She kept her head down, ashamed to be sitting in a police station.

"My dad dropped the charges. Your dad would be crazy to be mad at you over a little misunderstanding." He took her hand and rubbed his thumb across. "Besides look at how we've been treated. They won't harm a hair on your head." He gestured to the officers who tripped all over themselves to make sure she and Jessie were comfortable. If the jail cell wasn't in her eyesight she would have sworn this was a hotel, not a police office. "Give it a few days, this will all blow over." He leaned in and whispered in her ear. "My dad owns this precinct."

She turned around and looked at her boyfriend. He couldn't be serious. He really lived in his own world. Optimism? At a time like this? Jessie was both cocky and crazy. That kind of attitude was all well and good in the St. James' household where everything was led by WASP-y passive aggressiveness and sweeping things under the rug but in the Jones' house all you had was your word and once that was tarnished trust was gone for good. Her parents wouldn't want to hear this was all some misunderstanding. They would want to know why she was joyriding in a car that was reported stolen. She just wanted a night out, a night where she could hang with her boyfriend and be a normal teenager. So she told a little white lie that she was studying at a friend's house. There was no harm in it right? Who knew the first lie she told her parents would blow up in her face so spectacularly?

Mr. St James arrived first to much fanfare. The real estate baron smiled and greased many a dirty palm to get Jessie's charges dropped. It was just par for the course. Everyone knew the St. James were untouchable. Jessie being Jessie always tested the limits. She watched Jessie smirk as he strolled up to his father. It must be nice. They exchanged pleasantries for a minute: Mr. St James apologizing that Mercedes was dragged into his son's mistake and promising she would be in comfort until her parents arrived. He was charming. She could see why they could get away with murder. Watching them leave the police station she wished her father could be that carefree. She only sat alone a few minutes before her worst fears were realized.

Mercedes swallowed hard and closed her eyes. She felt him before she saw him. His heavy steps seeming to match her heartbeat. Tall and imposing, her father towered over most people. And his deep baritone voice only rivaled his hyper-masculine rolling walk. He had been known to intimidate powerful people with a look. In short, he was fucking scary. And now that he was standing right in front of her she knew exactly why those men cowered at his feet. He could put the fear of God in anyone.

"Dad? I'm so sorry." She looked up at him, eyes glossy and full or remorse.

"I'm too disgusted to look at you right now. We're going to the car. Bring your ass!"

It hurt worse to have him turn his back on her, but she stood and followed behind him dutifully. Deep down she knew she deserved any punishment he dished out. She let them down. She let herself down, and for what? To do something she had a bad feeling about?

She slid in the car and anticipated his speech. She wished he did something—punish her, yell at her, _anything_ but show his disappointment. As the silence mounted she knew this was the worst.

"I have half a mind to enroll you in military school. You're changing girl. You're letting that boy influence you. What happened to my sweet little girl who just wanted to ride horses and play with dolls?" He shook his head as he relieved picking up his 17-year-old daughter from a police station. This was his fault for seeing her as a perpetual 8-year-old and not a young adult. For not sensing the danger when boys sniffed around her. Not realizing how easily influenced she was.

"I'm still the same person dad, I just made a mistake." She had enough sense to be ashamed and she sat twiddling her thumbs in her lap, her eyes fixed on her hands. She couldn't look at him. Not now.

"No, you're not the same person, you're a liar. A liar that rides around in stolen cars. A liar that showed her ass and embarrassed your mother and me." He pulled up into the driveway slammed the car door shut and opened the front door widely waiting for her to walk through it. "Sit" He gestured to the sofa which she sat down on quietly.

Mercedes watched her mother hang up the phone and grimaced slightly when she saw the look that passed between her parents. It was all the confirmation she needed: life as she knew it was over. Her father motioned for her mother to begin. "I have never in my life been more disappointed in you. What were you thinking? I don't know if this was a cry for attention but you _surely_ have ours. Things are going to change tonight. I will not live in a house with a sneaky, lying child. Oh no. We're going to fix this _now_. First I want you to stop seeing that boy." She watched her daughter squirm and already knew what she was thinking. "Jessie St. James is so pompous I'm amazed he can breathe with how far his head is stuck in his ass. I'm not stupid enough to believe you'll stop seeing him because I said so. You two are going to need some distance. Spending the summer with your uncle will help you get back to your roots."

She sat speechless in the living room, eyes wide and jaw dropped. They were banishing her to Tennessee? The same place they rushed to leave? Jessie voice rang in her ears: _Doesn't that seem a might hypocritical?_

"Tennessee?"

Mercedes' mother caught the look of disgust on her daughter's face which produced a look of anger on her own. "Yes young lady, Tennessee. As in the place you were born? The place you cried about leaving not so long ago? You seem to have lost yourself. Forgotten where you came from. Working on the farm will do you some good." She leaned in closer so Mercedes was clear on her mother's stance. "And I don't _ever_ want to see you turning up your nose at your hometown again!"

If Calvin Jones was intimidating, his wife Irene was downright frightening. The petite caramel-complexioned woman had a voice that belied her stature. She was all warm smiles and veiled threats. Only problem was she always made good on them. Mercedes looked at her daddy for clemency whenever Irene the Enforcer was around.

Mercedes had enough sense to tremble. "Sorry Mama."

Irene turned and squatted to get eye level with her daughter. Cradling Mercedes' head in her hands, the older woman spoke with conviction and disappointment. "No. You're the one who's ashamed of who they are. I feel sorry for _you_."

She stood up and gestured towards the suitcases Mercedes never realized were beside the front door. "Your flight leaves in three hours. You have 20 minutes to say your goodbyes before we go to the airport."

Mercedes nodded and sniffled a little before being dismissed. She left a hurried message on Jessie's phone. Then another on her best friend's phone. All she got back was a one word text—_bummer :( _

Mercedes sighed and closed her phone, not even bothering to respond. That one word answer could sum up her and Quinn Fabray's friendship. Arms outstretched she fell on the bed, her mother's words swirling in her head. Was she really ashamed?


End file.
